Facebook Frenzy

DIY Sprocket Solutions

This article has been updated on 4/18/2019 with the article entitled "Beginners Guide to Facebook Marketing: Using Facebook to Benefit Your Business"

With over one billion users, Facebook is by far the top social media network.  There’s no point, really, in me rambling on about why Facebook can be a great tapped resource to your business – with one billion users, it speaks for itself.  There may be, however, a few ways to use Facebook for your business that you might not have considered before.  If you’re new to Facebook, these are a few tips for your business marketing that you might not yet know about.  If I put my little disclaimer stamp on this post it would read, “Note: I’m still navigating my way around the deep Facebook waters myself.  These are a few tips I’m looking into now and hoping that they might bring me a little more success.”

Drum roll please… a few, perhaps, less-obvious tips for you:

1.       You don’t have to do absolutely everything yourself.

Updating/maintaining/looking after your social media is not a quick job.  It looks quick, sure, but think of how many hours you can get lost on Facebook without posting a single thing?  Sometimes the preparation and digging that it takes for you to come up with a post can take way more time than you anticipated.  Not to mention that nowadays we’re also throwing ten different social media sites into the mix at once.  Pick up a third-party platform, trust me – your sanity will thank you.  I personally use Hootsuite and it’s a lifesaver.  You can link several pages (Facebook, Twitter, Google +, Linkedin, etc.) into the platform and update them all from one place.  Save yourself a little cyber time.

2.       Do some things yourself.

I know, I know, I’m going to contradict myself a tad here.  By all means, step back and save yourself some time.  BUT… you should also stop in to Facebook/Twitter etc. from time to time to really connect with customers, followers, and fans.    I think it adds a personal touch.

3.       Find out what they want and when they want it.

This is one I’ve just found out about and will be trying out soon myself (I’ll keep you posted on how that goes).  Apparently, there are third-party services (ex: Edgerank Checker) that will evaluate your fans for you and help you head in the right direction.  The application determines some important info for you:

·         Most effective day of the week and time of day to post content

·         Popular keywords that drive engagement

·         What type of media is best for your audience

·         How often to update

***Sidenote, I do know that Hootsuite also offers a service to determine the best time of day to post***

4.       Offer the obtainable!

If your business is based in Alaska and you’re selling stuffed fish, then having a free fish giveaway for anyone who walks in between 9am-12pm might be a bit hard for those of us who live somewhere else!  It’s not obtainable, it’s not realistic, and it’s not enough to interest me to ‘like’ your page.  No offense, but I’m not traveling to Alaska for a stuffed fish.  Even if I were a collector.  Do you have a website?  (Cough, cough: we sell them HERE.)  If so, offer a promo code for a free fish at checkout.  Offer the obtainable.

5.       Buy Ads…

This last one is pretty self explanatory.  It’s also one that we haven’t tried out yet so I can’t tell you how successful it is.  But every bit of research I’ve read about it suggests that Facebook is just the place to drop a little dough.  You can set a budget for Facebook ads.  It doesn’t have to be extravagant; you could set up $50/month for Facebook ads… or even less if you’d like – whatever works for you.  Give it a month or two, see if there’s any increase in traffic to your page.  If so, was it enough to make that expense worth it?

Give them a try, I’ll do the same.  Let me know what you get.

Breanne BannonBreanne Bannon

Breanne is a Content Writer, Social Media Marketeer, and Sales Associate for Sprocket Websites.

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